The moment Victor Estrella Burgos waited years for has finally arrived, and the Dominican can hardly breathe. He lies collapsed face down, his head buried in the red clay of Quito, his body shaking from disbelief.

Estrella Burgos has just beaten four-time titlist Feliciano Lopez, then No. 14 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, to win the 2015 Ecuador Open Quito. At 34, he has made history, becoming the oldest first-time ATP World Tour winner in the Open Era. He’s also become the first player from the Dominican Republic to win an ATP World Tour event.

By this time, though, Estrella Burgos had already made a career of shattering obstacles. As a boy, he taught himself how to play tennis. In his 20s, he taught the sport for years to fund his future career and achieve Dominican tennis history. When he could finally afford to go pro at the age of 26, people laughed at him. “It’s too late,” they told him.

But he has proved them wrong year after year, and when he retires, he’ll try to accomplish one more ambitious goal. The lifelong Santiago resident wants to make sure his story is never repeated. He wants everyone in the Dominican Republic with an interest in tennis to have the ability to pursue the sport.

“I don’t want the younger kids to have the same problems as me, like what I had before,” he said. “I want to change everything.”

Had it not been for his abundance of energy, who knows if Estrella Burgos’ own tennis talent would have been discovered. When he was eight, his dad asked a tennis teacher at a local club if he had anything that could keep his son busy.

“I was the ball boy,” Estrella Burgos said.

For about three hours every day, after and sometimes before school, Estrella Burgos would dash around the court, acting like a human tennis bucket, gobbling up balls while watching people play. During downtime, he’d grab a racquet and play like the people he saw: right-handed.

That’s why, almost 30 years later, even though Estrella Burgos writes with his left hand, he still hits a forehand with his right hand. “I didn’t have anybody to show me [how to play],” he said. “I saw the people play with their right hand, I took the racquet and I started.”

As a nine year old, Estrella Burgos won a junior tournament at the club, which upped his interest and landed him some advice. “So many people started to help me,” he said.

He gradually kept improving, becoming a top junior in the Dominican Republic and eventually teaching at the club. Through international competitions, including the Pan-American games and Davis Cup matches, Estrella Burgos soon believed he had the talents to compete among the best in the world.

As a 23 year old, for instance, he faced Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas, then 18, in a Davis Cup match. Estrella Burgos, No. 1,110 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, swept past the future Top 20 player 6-4, 6-3, 7-5. “I knew I had the level,” Estrella Burgos said.

But he lacked the finances to spend months and years on tour. So he kept working and teaching lessons at the club, squirreling away funds to someday launch his pro career.

No one from the Dominican Republic had done what he was trying to do – have a successful Top 100 career on the ATP World Tour. Yet Estrella Burgos was committed, and in 2006, as a 26 year old, he finally felt comfortable enough to give it a go professionally. He moved away from Santiago and relocated to Miami to practise with more people on a regular basis.

“Everybody thought, ‘It’s too late to start.’ But I think it’s never too late,” he said.

Read More: First-Time Winner Spotlight: Estrella Burgos

Estrella Burgos sweat it out at Futures events, his ranking in the low 900s of the Emirates ATP Rankings. By 2010, he had climbed to No. 211. By 2013, he had overcome torn cartilage in his right elbow to win multiple ATP Challenger Tour events for the first time in his career, including the Quito title, the start of his successful streak there.

The next year, Estrella Burgos hit his prime. In March, he became the first Dominican to crack the Top 100. In July, he reached the semi-finals in Bogota, beating then No. 14 Richard Gasquet in the quarter-finals before falling to eventual champion Bernard Tomic in a third-set tiebreak in the semi-finals.

In late 2014, Estrella Burgos became the oldest player to make his main draw debut at the US Open. He also became the first player from his country to play in the Grand Slam championship’s main draw.

The achievements kept coming and coming, but the best came in February 2015 in Quito, when he won five consecutive matches to take the title. In July 2015, he also reached a career best No. 43 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. Earlier this year, as a 35 year old, he won five more matches in Quito to become a two-time ATP World Tour champion.

“Quito is just special for me,” he said. “I feel very confident. I feel I play very good and thank God I won the tournament again.”

He’s not done yet, either. “I think I can get better and better this year,” said Estrella Burgos, who turned 36 earlier this month.

How many titles, though, would Estrella Burgos have if he had turned pro when he was 18? How high would he be in the Emirates ATP Rankings?

These are questions he doesn’t want another Dominican to have to consider, so when he retires, he plans to start a foundation that will help promote tennis across the country. To start, Estrella Burgos, who moved back to Santiago after a handful of years in Miami, wants to work with the government to build public tennis courts in Santiago, which has a population of 550,753. When he was a kid, the city had nine public courts. Now, he said, it has zero.

If you want to play tennis but don’t belong to one of the three private clubs in Santiago, he said, you have nowhere to play. “That’s why everything is hard, because we don’t have the facilities,” he said. “If you are not a member, you cannot practise… That’s why everybody decides to play baseball, basketball, or another sport, not tennis.”

Estrella Burgos, who still lives in the home he grew up in, also wants to make sure kids who show tennis talent at a young age can gain the proper instruction. “I know so many of them play good but they don’t have any help or anybody to help them to make tournaments,” he said. “With my experience, with my ideas and everything, I have to help.”

He has seen how his historic career has generated interest in tennis in the Dominican Republic, and he wants to make sure he’s not the first and the last player from his country to win titles and break ATP World Tour records.

“This is my dream, to make a foundation,” he said. “We can make something different.”

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has withdrawn from next week’s Western & Southern Open due to a left wrist injury. It is the only ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament he has yet to win.

“I am very sad to announce that I won’t be able to play this year in Cincinnati at the Western & Southern Open,” said Djokovic, a winner of a record 30 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles. “I have a recurring injury that has taken its toll on my body due to a very busy and active schedule this year. I have played many matches and I have to take some rest in order to heal. I always have my hopes high on returning to Cincinnati and winning the only trophy I am missing in the Masters [1000] series.”

Djokovic, who has finished runner-up in Cincinnati on five occasions, is not expected to play until the US Open, the final Grand Slam championship of the year, beginning on 29 August. The 29-year-old Serbian has a 51-5 match record on the 2016 season, including seven titles.

If you are an athlete in New Zealand, there’s a good chance that rugby is your sport of choice. Internationally heralded, the All Blacks garner most of the sporting attention in the South Pacific island nation.

But if Finn Tearney has his way, tennis will soon be in the spotlight.

At No. 388 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, New Zealand’s No. 1 singles player sent shockwaves around the ATP Challenger Tour on Tuesday, following an upset of top seed and #NextGen star Quentin Halys in Gatineau, Canada. A qualifier at the $75,000 event, Tearney maintained his composure in rallying from a set down to stun the 19-year-old Frenchman after a grueling one-hour and 37-minute battle. The Kiwi reeled off the final eight games of the match to claim his first main draw victory on the ATP Challenger Tour this year.

“I’ve been struggling a bit in Challengers and lost in the last round of qualies two or three times recently,” Tearney told ATPWorldTour.com in Gatineau. “It’s nice to be able to get through this week. I knew he’s been struggling the last couple of tournaments as well and if I hung in there, I could get on top. In the third set I ran away with it. I just relaxed a bit. I was missing some shots I usually make. I knew that if I could just execute a few more, my confidence would grow from there.”

“I lost to Darian King in Binghamton, who went on to win the tournament,” he added. “It’s not like I’ve been getting thumped every week, but it’s just about taking little steps and to keep believing that you can beat these guys. It’s really nice to get a win like this, because obviously he’s a good player.”

Steadily moving up the Emirates ATP Rankings, Tearney is finding his form after shoulder surgery sidelined him in 2014, following his graduation from Pepperdine University in California. Up to a projected career-high No. 360 with Tuesday’s victory, Tearney says he defines success as playing to the best of his abilities. It’s a simple, yet necessary philosophy.

“If I play good tennis, my ranking will take care of itself. I’m trying to play the way I want to play. If I play my tennis and beat good players, my ranking will improve. As simple as that,” said Tearney. “It’s about being consistent. This is my first Challenger main draw win this year.”

“After I beat Somdev Devvarman [in Burnie] last year, I thought that if I’m playing someone ranked in the 900s, I should win. But that’s just not how it works,” he reflected. “Everyone here is good.”

With tennis in New Zealand steadily growing in popularity, as evidenced by Michael Venus’ climb to No. 40 in the Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings, Tearney is now motivated more than ever. Venus, who has notched four ATP World Tour doubles titles this year, is a major source of inspiration for his countryman.

“Michael is a good friend of mine. We practise all the time at home. He’s been someone I look up to for overall professionalism and the way he trains. I’ve learned so much from him,” said Tearney. “He’s Top 50 in doubles now and playing great. I’ve had some tough losses recently and he’s sent me some nice messages. He’s pretty inspiring. It’s great to see how his career has really flourished.”

The 25-year-old Auckland native was seven when he first picked up a racquet and started taking lessons two years later. Tearney admits that while his professional aspirations didn’t fully develop until he went to college. Despite the large disparity in the level of competition, he is steadily adapting to life on the ATP Challenger Tour.

“Going to college was the best decision. I developed physically and mentally. But it’s completely different. The overall quality is a big step up here and the same from Futures to Challengers. It’s just a matter of getting used to it,” said Tearney. “Players are much more aggressive and if you drop it short in the court, they’ll take you on. I need to stop thinking about the result and trust in the process. I’m trying to be more aggressive and not worry about the outcome as much.”

After breaking through last week with his maiden ATP Challenger Tour title, Arthur De Greef could soon be ready for the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings.

On the heels of reaching his first two Challenger finals earlier this year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Napoli, Italy, the 24-year-old prevailed in an all-Belgian battle over Steve Darcis to prevail in Liberec, Czech Republic. Having started the year at No. 270 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, De Greef now sits at a career-high standing of No. 142.

“It means a lot to me because I had a lot of injuries just two years ago, but now I feel great,” said De Greef. “Winning there just feels like another step in the right direction”

The Belgian is building on that momentum at this week’s ATP Challenger Tour in Fano, Italy. He prevailed over in a first-round match on Tuesday over Christian Garin of Chile and has quickly grown comfortable with his new surroundings because “there’s a lot of people who come to the stands to enjoy the matches.”

But while Fano is a new city for him, the clay courts here are entirely familiar. Eighteen of the 19 tournaments De Greef has played this year have been on clay and the surface perfectly complements his game style.

“I love to play on clay because I use a lot of spin when I hit the ball and I’m physically fast and in good shape,” he said. “I love having the time to see and understand the game properly.”

It isn’t just his results that are gaining De Greef attention, though. His Hot Shot on match point of his semi-final in Liberec, a volley winner with enough backspin to bounce back onto his side of the net, went viral and reached nearly 320,000 people.

WATCH: De Greef’s Brilliant Backspin Hot Shot In Liberec

“I got a lot of messages. Everybody was like, ‘Hey, that was a crazy shot,’” said De Greef. “But I use those kind of strokes so much when I practise and the guys I hit with know it very well. But that particular shot… well, that was a nice one!”

After some admitted rough patches in the early stages of his comeback from injury, Janko Tipsarevic is confident he’s rounding into peak form.

The former World No. 8 is competing at this week’s $125,000 ATP Challenger Tour event in Qingdao, China, and posting the type of results one might expect from a former Top 10 player in the Emirates ATP Rankings. After coming through qualifying, he easily dispatched Chinese teenager Yibing Wu on Wednesday, 6-2, 6-0.

“It hasn’t been easy,” admitted Tipsarevic about his latest comeback so far. “After three surgeries, it’s not like you suddenly don’t have pain anywhere. The tumor on the left foot, the surgery on the right knee, you’re always compensating on one side or the other. There were a lot of small problems, so I couldn’t have long periods of uninterrupted work.”

Tipsarevic returned to the ATP World Tour last April after missing nearly eight months due to right knee patella tendonitis. The Serbian sat out for 18 months prior to that with persistent foot issues, specifically in his left heel, which included two surgeries to remove a benign tumor.

Although he’s excited about his best tennis beginning to resurface, he’s even more excited about being fully healthy.

“This is the first time in a very, very long time that I feel completely good and confident about my body,” said Tipsarevic. “I have the energy, speed and endurance to play defense now, which was the biggest problem with the leg issue.”

Tipsarevic admitted his first tournaments back have included more losses than he’d like. Although he’s still more than capable of big wins, as evidenced by his victory over Grigor Dimitrov this June at the Aegon Championships, he said in hindsight that a more low-key approach at the beginning of his comeback would have been better.

“I maybe made a mistake in trying to play ATP World Tour events as soon as possible. I’d like to give a shout out to all the tournaments that were very good to me. I barely used any of my Injury Protected Rankings because everybody was giving me wild cards, so I’m eternally grateful for that,” said Tipsarevic. “But I should have started with more Challengers. I need to get that confidence from hearing, ‘Game, set, match, Tipsarevic,’ regardless of who it’s against.”

Tipsarevic still has six Injury Protected Rankings that will expire in October, so he plans to utilise them at ATP World Tour events for the next few months. But the Serbian said he will return to Challengers if necessary and hopes he can add a high note to his summer with a title in Qingdao.

“Winning here would be a huge confidence boost. I’ve never won a Challenger coming from qualifying and I’ve always played well in the latter part of the year if I win a Challenger,” said Tipsarevic. “But it’s only the second round now, so we still have a long way to go.”

Spaniard Marcel Granollers started first-round play at the inaugural Abierto Mexicano Mifel in Los Cabos by beating countryman Fernando Verdasco 7-6(2), 6-2.

Granollers dropped only six points on his first serve and pressured Verdasco’s serve throughout the one-hour and 39-minute match, seeing 15 break points and converting three of them. Granollers will next face German Tobias Kamke, who outlasted American Tim Smyczek 2-6, 6-2, 6-0.

Granollers’ countryman Pablo Carreno Busta also moved into the second round with a 6-4, 7-6(6) victory against Frenchman and sixth seed Jeremy Chardy. Carreno Busta, who received a wild card into the tournament, will play American Austin Krajicek, who denied Mexican wild card Tigre Hank his first ATP World Tour win 7-6(2), 6-3.

Frenchman Julien Benneteau set-up a second-round clash against Argentine Horacio Zeballos by outlasting #NextGen player Jared Donaldson 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2. Zeballos struck 62 per cent of his first serves to upset fifth seed Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-3, 6-3 in 61 minutes.

“I don’t think I played really solid today,” Dolgopolov said. “I was missing a lot. He just played better than me.”

Later in the day, seventh seed Nicolas Almagro lost just five of his first service points and struck 13 aces in a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory over 20-year-old qualifier Noah Rubin in one hour and 42 minutes. Almagro captured his 13th ATP World Tour title in early May – his first trophy since 2012 Nice – at the Millennium Estoril Open (d. Carreno Busta).